it's shakespeare's birthday!

here is when he went to california last year. he is lecturing about the water.

and here is when he was in new jersey a few years ago. he was feeding the birds some bread.

he hasn't done a lot of lecturing recently.

i've been having trouble uploading videos, but today i got it to work

and uploaded a video from awp of forrest gander reading this best poem by frank stanford.

i wish i could hear the title.

the perec tutorial was canceled so i've been reading graham foust and writing about spines.

here are some pictures from a colfax pub crawl

chrome shoes

m and i just got our free chrome shoes in the mail. m got olive and i got gray.

look at this

roxi took this picture of a most beautiful thing

a tinfoil tale

i have to tell you this story.

there's this restaurant called vine street and i love to go there. i always get the same thing (a tempeh reuben) and i never finish it. occasionally i remember to bring a container to bring it home in but sometimes i forget.

one time, they asked if they could box it for me, which they always try to do and makes me feel uncomfortable, and i said okay. they said we're trying to conserve boxes, do you want it wrapped in tinfoil and i said yes. so they did. and it was just wrapped like a sandwich would be wrapped, like a present. before we left, i changed it to look like a swan.

the next time they asked to wrap my sandwich they brought it back to me as a swan!

i was thinking, wow! i taught them about tinfoil swans. so i told m, and he was like, yeah, right. but it was true.

so, the next time i go there, they bring me a swan but i didn't feel like carrying it from the bottom, so i make it into a purse by attaching the swan's head to the swan's tail. and i carried it out of the restaurant like this.

guess what happened today! (oh, there were intermittent times that involved no swans and no purses)

the waitress brings me the sandwich and says, here you go, a clutch for you. and it's a tinfoil purse! i couldn't believe it. i say to m, can you believe it! and he says, no, you're crazy. and i said, no, i'm not, i made this happen. this is my business model. i'm a tinfoil trendsetter. and none of these people know. he said, no you're not. but i am. and i said yes, i am. i need this. just say i'm the guy that started all of this. and he disagreed. but i was sitting on the outside of the booth and so i made him tell me it was true before we could go home. so he said i am, but i know he thinks i'm not. but it's true, right? i think it has to be.

here are what the purse and swan look like (the swan looks kinda jacked up because it was a purse before it was a swan and it's best to have it just as a swan.)

the tree show

i've been looking at mark ryden's book, the tree show.

in the fairy tale class tomorrow we're talking about contemporary visual representations of fairy tales. i don't know if these really fit, but it feels like they do.

there is also kris chau (thanks to pont, i have "small white foxes" on my wall) and corey helford, which d just recently told me about.

haul

from awp. it was my first awp. it was bright and overwhelming. but i saw some incredible readings and found all of these beautiful books. now it's over. i'm on my couch drinking water. i wish i could do this for three days.

what the end was like.

two of my most favorite people in the universe.

 more favorites

another. i read with roxi and danielle on wednesday for sidebrow. it was so fun. we mixed all of our things together.

andrea likes to make things at the dq booth. last year she was making felt animals and this year she was making a mitten. maybe mittens.

i was walking with some things.

drew!

i was part of a reading at the mca. c.d. wright and forrest gander read for lost roads to celebrate reissuing frank stanford''s conditions uncertain and likely to pass away. i read with many perfect horse less people, including: Cynthia Arrieu-King, Sommer Browning, Julia Cohen, Bruce Covey, Nate Slawson, Eric Baus, Andrea Rexilius, Shawn Huelle, Sarah Bartlett, Joseph Wood, Jen Tynes, and Susan Scarlata.

 friday there was a reading to celebrate boulevard's 25th anniversary. kevin let me read with him. and d.a. powell and martha collins. it took away all my breath.

 we read at this great space. ts and i wanted to photograph this wooden animal a lot.

all of the pictures i took of us here turned out dark.

on saturday i went to a panel about ghosts that starred kate greenstreet, selah saterstrom, cole swensen and others.

 that night i went to a reading that had these people as audience members. i have some videos from this reading that i want to upload.

this animal was available for photos on the last day.